The Berlin Wall fell 33 years ago: do differences between 'East and West' still exist?

On November 9, 1989, something that everybody really thought was impossible happened: the border between East and West Germany was opened.

Germans cheered first in disbelief, then in jubilation. The streets of Berlin were packed, on both sides of the wall.

The Berlin Wall, a symbol of the Cold War, was built almost overnight on August 13, 1961. As a result Germany, the city of Berlin and many families were separated. A separation that would last for 28 years, two months and 28 days.

More than 5,000 GDR (German Democratic Republic aka East Germany) citizens fled to western Berlin despite the barriers (pictured). But many escape attempts failed. Winfried Freudenberg was the last victim of the Wall: on March 8, 1989, he crashed with an improvised gas balloon after flying over the sector border from a great height in the West Berlin district of Zehlendorf.

The protests of many East German citizens and the decisions of the then head of government of the Soviet Union, Michael Gorbachev, were decisive for the disappearance of the wall.

Today you have to look for the historical parts of the Wall in Berlin. And that's what a lot of tourists do. The wall has become a tourist attraction.

The Berlin Wall is also a piece of art. The East Side Gallery (pictured) is the longest surviving piece of the Wall. In 1990 it was painted by 118 artists from 21 countries.

And what is left of the differences between East and West among the people who were separated by the Berlin Wall? It's not easy to know which clichés continue to exist in people's minds, but there are figures that show that there are still measurable differences... But also that they are becoming smaller.

From 1990 to 2019, the population in the western German federal states increased by 5.4 million people. In the same period, the five eastern German federal states lost around 2.2 million inhabitants. According to the State Center for Civic Education, this migration from East to West has stopped since 2015.

The report 'East Germany. A new look from 2022 by the Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Europe says that only 39 percent of East Germans are satisfied with democracy in Germany. In the West it is 59 percent.

The report goes on to say that at the time of the survey in August 2022, only 26 percent of those surveyed in the East were satisfied with the work of the federal government. In the old federal states, satisfaction is currently 44 percent.

According to the report by the Eastern Commissioner, only 43 percent of East Germans and 58 percent of West Germans believe "that you can always freely express your opinion without getting into trouble."

According to the state center for political education, East Germans still earn an average of 14 percent less than West Germans. Income disparities have narrowed very slowly since the mid-1990s.

According to lpb, the new federal states are also worse off when it comes to financial circumstances. While private households in the old federal states have real estate and financial assets of around 182,000 USD on average, households in the new federal states only have around $88,000 of equity on average.

In the picture: the artist Jim Avignon in front of his work, 2019 in Berlin.

The most commented-on political difference between East and West is probably the popularity of the far-right AFD party. According to Statista, 19.1 percent of East Germans voted for AFD in the 2021 federal election, compared to only 8.2 percent in the old federal states.

But even if things are slow and not always easy, "what belongs together grows together," as Willy Brandt so aptly commented on the fall of the Wall on November 9, 1989.